No matter where you live in the world it is not easy to go against the opinions and practices of those around you.  It is difficult to say “no” when everyone else is saying “yes.”  Integrity and character are established by convictions that can only be changed by a deeper conviction, and not by pleasure or pressure.  While it may be easier to just go along to get along, just going along in small matters develops a habit that is hard to overcome when it is time take a stand in matters of conscience.  If your “No” always means ‘no’ and your “Yes” always means ‘yes’ in all matters, unless otherwise convinced, you can be trusted as a person who says what you mean and mean what you say.  If your heartfelt conviction says “No” and you can be moved or pressured to change, against your convictions, then you can be used by anyone or any group to further any agenda.  In order to be disciplined for success, you must have what I call the discipline of “yes” and the discipline of “no”.  Most people who want to control or use you, consciously or unconsciously, will first test your boundaries to discover your limits.  The cliché “everyone has a price” is true on a level deeper than originally intended.  Yes, you will either accept the price, or pay the price.  If you refuse to accept the price offered for your going along, you will pay a price for your refusal.  

Our resolve to have boundaries and limits begins in small ways, and early in life, sometimes with the stubbornness and “No” of a child.  Likewise, our ability to manipulate and wear down the resolve of others can be seen in the smooth talking of a lover, the bullying of a classmate, the whining of a child, or the power of peer pressure.  The complicity of the ‘good’ people in the attempted extermination of Jews in Germany under Hitler’s reign, the brutal enslavement of Africans in America and worldwide, and the lynching of former slaves in the United States on a Saturday by those who went to church the next day, are historical examples of how people go along with heinous crimes. No one wants to be labeled as different or odd so we tend to say to ourselves, “everyone else I know is doing it, so I guess I will go along.”  More than likely we participated in many first-time events in our lives because we were persuaded by someone else, or simply a desire not to be different from others.  More than likely we have some unexamined areas in our lives in which we are still going along with things that hurt others because we simply ‘don’t see the harm in it.’ In our world we tolerate child abuse, domestic violence, racial prejudice, and unfair treatment of others on many levels when we have no boundaries that we will not cross.

With our “No” we must be willing, disciplined, and courageous enough to ‘draw lines in the sand’ and say, “this I cannot accept” and “this I will not do.” With our “Yes” we must be disciplined in doing what we say we will do.  This “Yes/No” discipline begins with us.  If you can keep your word to yourself consistently, you will consistently keep your word to others.  If you can draw a line in the sand and stand on the side of what you truly believe to be right and morally correct, and consistently stay on that side of the line, your battle will not be against people but for the principles you hold dear.  With this discipline, I believe our success will not be measured by the castles we build in the sand, that may be washed away, but by our integrity, character, and godliness which we leave for the next generation.

If only I had done this instead of that.  If only I hadn’t said anything.  If only I had said something.  If only I had gone home.  If only I had stayed home that night.  If only I had finished what I started.  If only I knew then what I know now.

I believe we all have some ‘if only’ reflections in which a different decision would have changed the course of our lives.  In fact, today we will make decisions which we will reflect upon in the future as an ‘if only’ moment.  Today’s decisions will have positive outcomes depending on how much we learned from our past decisions, how well we assess the terrain, and depending on our hopes and goals for the future.  If we learn nothing from our past, our present and future decisions will be the same as our past decisions.  If we have learned from the past but fail to observe the old patterns in new situations, we will step on the same booby traps and mine fields that hindered our progress before.  If we have no mission, plan, or goal, we will accept whatever happens as if it were something that was meant to be.  If we lose hope, we accept defeat.  If we lose hope we agree to die where we are, or we play a game of chance, depending on luck, or someone else, to change our fate.

We go through mine fields every day and we encounter booby traps along the way.  These mines may have been intentionally set by those who want to benefit from our defeat.  Or, they may have been unintentionally set by those who live in a culture and atmosphere of defeat.  Whether set intentionally or unintentionally, the mines and booby traps will distract, demoralize, and defeat you if you are not aware of them, and diligent to avoid them.  It is also important to dismantle the traps and diffuse the bombs so that others will not step on them, because everyone can be affected by an explosion and anyone can be caught in a trap.

I am becoming more aware of how others have been hurt and wounded by the traps I got caught in, and by the mines I stepped on.  I am also becoming aware of how others have been helped when I saw, avoided, and dismantled booby traps and mines along the way.  Although we have those ‘if only’ moments personally, nationally, and as a human family on earth, we can change our course each day as we dismantle the bombs that we inherited from those who lived on the planet before we arrived.  We can also dismantle the traps and mines that we have left along the way, intentionally or unintentionally.  We can be disciplined for our own success, and for the success and well-being of our world.

What makes a person cheat on their spouse? What makes an abuser abuse? What makes a thief steal? What makes a liar lie? When any of these actions are sanctioned, justified, or silently accepted by those around us, we create a culture that is hard to change. Culture is contagious and can affect a nation and the world. Usually something drastic has to occur to cause us to change entrenched behavior. A few day ago, I spoke to a man suffering from COPD who said that his doctor told him that if he wanted to live he had to stop smoking. He kept smoking and at follow-up appointment his doctor asked him if he had stopped smoking. He said, “I lied and said, ‘yes’ but the doctor knew that I was lying and told me so.” He said the doctor then asked him very forcefully whether wanted to live or die. When he returned home he prayed for help, and made a decision to stop smoking that day and has not smoked for three years. He is in a wheelchair and on an oxygen tank, but he said that he thanks God everyday to be alive. Change is difficult, but not impossible. If bad habits and addictions have us on a collision course with death, as we appear to be worldwide, we can discipline ourselves, ask God for help, and change our course.

The comedian Flip Wilson popularized the phrase, “The devil made me do it,” as a catchall excuse for any bad behavior. Most of the poor decisions in my life were made, not because the devil made me do it but because I listened to the devil and gave in. Just like giving in is a decision made by small repeated compromises, we change poor and destructive behavior by the discipline of saying no to the temptation to give in. It has been said that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, but I am learning that with a disciplined mind, and help from God, we can successfully drive the devil out. If we can fill the idle mind and our time with constructive productivity, we can take back our minds and our world. We can certainly see that our world needs some help right now.

When we discipline ourselves for success, the devil can no longer ‘make us do it’ and with the help of God we can drive the devil out.

At one time in our history as a human race on this planet, our curiosity about our world was always coupled with a belief that there was a God or gods, who was, or were responsible for our being here and who interacted with us. Yes, it seems that religion and science were married and raising a family.  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all claimed belief in the God who introduced himself to Abraham. Some of the greatest contributors to our vast reservoir of scientific knowledge have also been defenders or practitioners of faith. In fact, the list of scientists who believed in God, or whose religious beliefs were integral to their scientific inquiry, from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths is amazing.

It appears that the more we learned about ourselves and our world from a scientific point of view the rocky the marriage became.  Perhaps the divorce papers were filed somewhere in the latter part of the 19^th century after Charles Darwin published his, Origin of the Species, 160 years ago in 1859.  Darwin’s theory of evolution became the basis for the expulsion of God from earth and scientific inquiry, and Stephen Hawking the 20^th century cosmologist expelled the notion of God from the study of the Universe.  The amazing thing is that both the children of science and the children of religion are now predicting the same outcome for the human family on earth, and the forecast does not look good.  Stephen Hawking spoke of the dangers of global warming, artificial intelligence, nuclear annihilation, and even the destruction of much of the earth from a meteor.  Like Hawking, an avowed atheist, others have declared the ‘death of faith’. 

Often in a messy divorce, the parents will attempt to convince the children that the other parent was the cause of the divorce.  So, it has been in this messy divorce between science and religion.  Yet, the grandchildren and great grandchildren have discovered old picture albums and love letters from the happy days of marriage.  Comparing notes, the predictions of the scientists and the prophesies of the children of faith seem to be saying the same thing, trouble is on the way. 

Perhaps our disciplines have taken us in different directions only for us to discover as Job in the Bible discovered, after tremendous debate, that there is a God over science and religion.   And perhaps like Job, if we reckon with God, we to can be restored and perhaps save others around us.

When a storm warning is in effect, the current weather conditions can be very deceptive.    The sun can be shining on a calm day with a category four hurricane warning in effect.  A day can begin with dry ground, sunshine and clear skies and within 24 hours there can be two feet of snow on the ground.  The question is not whether the storm is coming, but what we are doing to prepare before it arrives?  Depending on the severity of the storm and the location of its impact, preparation can mean the difference between life and death.  Yet, following almost every severe storm we hear of people losing their lives because they did not heed the warning to prepare or evacuate.

Preparation for the coming storm worldwide in every sector of society means that we cannot continue with business as usual. In the economic sector, our personal, national, and global debt is exorbitantly high. Of the world’s industrialized nations, the United States was ranked sixth in national debt in 2018 with a deficit of nearly 19 Trillion dollars. As education is being devalued in some sectors of our society, the cost of education has resulted in student loans so high that some people will not be able to repay them in their lifetime. Credit card debt, personal loans, and what has been described as predatory lending, have interest rates ranging from 24% to 400% annually, making debt resolution almost impossible for many here, and around the world.

Some economic observers find it difficult to understand how the world economy has not already collapsed. In fact, I heard a catchy maxim years ago which I believe describes the imminent economic crisis. “If your outgo, exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall.” The debt to income ratio for many nations seems to be rising at such a drastic rate that either catastrophe is certain, or global intervention will be necessary to avoid global collapse.

Economic change and recovery for our world is going to require either change or collapse in the way we do business as individuals and governments throughout the world. We need a new measure of success and a new discipline to achieve it. Yet, there are several more sectors of society which will require transformation if our world is to escape the danger of global collapse. Stay tuned for further updates on the forecast.

Yesterday at a Gathering of Men, one man spoke of having done something for which he got in some serious trouble earlier in life. Before helping him, his father asked him why he had done what he had done. He then said that his father gave him serious instruction on the difference between ‘reasons’ and ‘excuses’. His comments challenged me to look at many of the so-called reasons I have given myself for not doing things I could have done, and for not refraining from doing things I should have avoided.

Excuses always point a finger of blame. Looking back on mistakes, poor judgments, or things for which I was just wrong in my life, I often attributed blame to someone else, a situation, or some occurrence which I described as beyond my control.  However, in many instances it was an attempt to justify myself or my behavior. It may be a fact and a logical reason that something has occurred, however, even if the reason is good, it does not have to become an excuse. As I learn how to take more responsibility for my behavior without excuses, I become more accountable to myself, to others, and to God, even when there were extenuating circumstances which could serve as a valid excuse.

Whether you find yourself blaming the government, the wealthy, this person, that person, this group of people, that group of people, situations, or even God, in your mind, your success or failure will always depend on someone or something except you. So the next time you are late for work or for an appointment and you are tempted to blame the traffic or anything, try taking full responsibility, even if traffic was heavy, and see if you don’t discover that you could have done something that would have produced a different outcome.

We can achieve greater success in all areas of our lives when we become disciplined for success with a spirit of excellence. No more excuses! Let’s get disciplined!

Impulse is defined as a sudden, involuntary inclination which prompts us to do something. When someone constantly does things driven by their emotions at that moment, we tend to call that person impulsive. A man shoots and kills his wife and two friends at the wife’s birthday party because she took his car keys so that he would not drive drunk. A woman slaps a waitress inciting a brawl in a restaurant because she was not pleased with the food or the service. A driver is cut off in traffic by another driver and road rage leaves one dead. A police officer driven by fear, anger, and prejudice shoots and kills an unarmed person. A man finds his wife in bed with another man and shoots and kills two people. A parent beats a child unmercifully while demeaning the child. All of these could be considered impulsive acts, and I am sure each of us can think of a thousand more. If we are honest, we can also confess to many impulsive acts that we commit daily, like overeating, disparaging someone’s character because they upset or disappointed us.

Impulsive behavior has ruined lives and has destabilized our world in so many ways. Impulsive behavior is celebrated on television, in music, and in our movies. Yet impulses are not always negative. A young man walking down the street sees a woman lying on the ground in front of her home with her child sitting beside her. He stops and calls 911, and because of his impulse to help her, her life was saved.

Our impulses come from our thoughts that are dominant at the time of action. Whatever we feed our thoughts will influence our actions. A bitter person is likely to produce actions that grow out of that bitterness. The impulses of a thoughtful and caring person are likely to produce thoughtful and caring actions. In a time of crisis, our impulsive response will depend on what kind of mind and heart we consistently cultivate day after day.

We discipline our impulses by disciplining our thoughts. Paramedics and those who respond to crisis are trained to respond with aid and care. If we are going to help our world in this time of crisis, we must train ourselves to control our impulses to save life, and not destroy it.

The impending global crisis that I see on the horizon is being fueled by fear on all levels and in every sector of society. Fear and intimidation are tools that are becoming more prevalent among criminals in the streets, religious devotees, politicians, school administrators, nations, and even in families. Tempers are heightened and it does not seem to take much for someone to shoot and kill someone over things that seem to be trivial or insignificant. Because of fear the world is being divided by a stronger sense of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ When fear dominates, it is easy become angry and lose self-control. Many people have been backed into a corner by their fear, causing them to lose a grip on reality and morality.

Fear can cause you to commit murder or suicide, and sometimes both. Fear can cause you to abuse others or accept the abuse of others. In our world the people who can evoke the most fear are often considered the most powerful. Even wealth is often protected by evoking fear through the threat of violence or punitive retribution against anyone who steals or even those who justly cause a shift in the balance of wealth. Greed is motivated by the fear that there will not be enough for everyone. The thirst for power is motivated by fear also. The need to control and dominate others before they can dominate us is not only the rule between nations and businesses, it is also the rule of the streets. This can only be a dog-eat-dog world for those who see themselves as dogs.

Fear not only separates us and causes us to hurt others, but it can also keep us from becoming our best in any area of life when we are paralyzed by a fear of failure, fear of death, or fear of hard work. Even the fear of success can keep us from giving our best to the world. Fear will torment you in your sleep and sneak up on you at unsuspecting times of the day. The Bible says that ‘perfect love’ will get rid of fear. This kind of love is not weak or afraid but it is strong and powerful. It is not greedy or needy. It does not destroy life but it restores life. The Bible says that “love is as strong as death.” Whether you are afraid of dying or afraid of living, in order to overcome your fears you will have to employ the discipline of facing your fears with love and courage. It takes courage to be disciplined for success. So if you want to be strong and courageous when the world is in crisis, walk through your fears, and give your best, and be the best version of yourself twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As you become disciplined for success the atmosphere will change around you, everywhere you go, and you will have contributed greatly to helping us overcome the fear factor on this planet.

One of the pitfalls of being gifted to get by with very little effort, is that you tend to just get by. Effort is always required for excellence.  If you have a ‘get by’ or ‘make do’ attitude, you generally will not attempt to do anything that requires detailed planning, delayed gratification, or diligent and sustained effort.  Ideas come to thinkers; life is made easier for strategic planners; wisdom is given to prayers; and solutions are found by seekers.  Just as unused muscles will atrophy or become weaker and weaker, an unused mind will lose its ability to think.  Just as the body must be exercised for strength, the mind and the spirit must be exercised for maximum success.

There are challenges facing all of us, both short-term and long-term, and individually and collectively.  If we can shake ourselves and wake up from our sleep paralysis, we can prepare for the storms before they arrive.  Preparation for what we are facing may come through reading, studying, saving, calculating, working, and praying.  We may get help from a teacher, a neighbor, a counselor, a preacher, a YouTube video, a google search, or a library, but ultimately our help must come from God.  We will only succeed, however, when we discipline ourselves to put one foot in front of the other, until we reach our destination.  If we discipline ourselves to set goals, and remain focused on our daily objectives, we will turn away from the constant distractions that tend to waste our time and energy, and we will become disciplined for long-term success.

We must prepare like we are training for the fight of our lives (because we are)!  We must fight procrastination and complacency!  We must fight laziness and fear!  We must fight the lies and immorality that seek to control us! We must fight for a future!  We must fight for strong minds, pure hearts, and clear vision!  We must fight every enemy within that attempts to prevent us from accomplishing the purpose God wants us to complete on earth.  As the trainer told the boxer in a movie I once saw, “one step at a time, one punch at a time.”  As Paul told his student Timothy in the Bible, “Fight the good fight of faith…”

Our success lies in our preparation, and our step-by-step, day-by-day, consistent faithfulness.

An act of faith never stands alone.  In order to do anything that requires some risk you must believe that it is possible.  Even if you act out of desperation thinking that this is your only hope, something in you has to say, “it just might work.”  Faith requires action and faithfulness is the result of consistency.  Both faith and faithfulness are necessary to become successful in any area of endeavor.  The greater our vision, the more we will have to discipline ourselves to accomplish our goals. 

If we are disciplined for success, our faith will help us to meet the challenges that we will face during the impending global crisis and beyond.  Our faithfulness will help us develop new strategies and new behaviors that will help us finish strong in small and great objectives.  Many people begin diets, exercise routines, classes, etc., and succeed in losing weight, getting in shape, or completing a course, only to go back to old habits and routines that lead to regaining weight, being out of shape again, and failing to complete a course of study beyond the one class.  Faithfulness and consistency produce lifestyle changes.  Someone once said that if you can do something consistently for twenty-one days, you can change or develop a new habit. 

For many years I have had a routine of prayer and exercise in the morning, but I am learning that an excellent spirit in one area of my life and mediocrity in other areas can hinder my overall success in life.  My present challenge is to strive for excellence in everything that I do.  An adage that was told to me as a child helps me to be mindful of the need to do all things well.  “If a task is once begun, leave it not until it’s done.  Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”

Change is an inevitable part of the life process. Although failure and success qualify as subjective changes that occur continually in our lives, most changes occur slowly and often go unnoticed at first, like the slow changing of the leaves on the trees in autumn, or the way we age slowly over time. While most changes in our lives occur unconsciously, repentance is a change that must occur consciously. If all of a sudden you learn that your behavior is killing you or hurting others, repentance is making a conscious decision to discipline yourself to replace those negative behaviors with positive ones. If we knew that the words we speak determine our success or failure in life, we would be very careful to only speak life giving and success oriented words. If we knew that our feelings, emotions, and words could save or kill someone else, we would be very careful to maintain control over our thoughts and our words, and subsequently our actions. On the other hand, there are so many small things that we can do to make our lives and the lives of other better, but we give ourselves a thousand excuses, and leave them undone. Repentance means change, undoing some things, and doing some things that were left undone.

There is a Japanese term called ‘kaizen’ which means ‘continuous improvement’ or making small changes everyday. I used to encourage those who wanted to began running in order to get in good physical shape, to start by running to the end of their driveway everyday for a week, or whatever length of time it took for it to become easy. I then encouraged them to add one house at a time until each distance became easy to run. This method worked for me as one who has been a runner for many years. Beginning with very short distances, I worked my way up to seven miles before 7am for a number of years. I recently learned of the term ‘kaizen’ but it made me think that if incremental growth was good for physical fitness, it can be good for mental, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and financial fitness as well. That is the key to “Disciplined For Success” and the key to lasting change. Intentional change begins with a decision, and is maintained by consistency.

Recalling the global warning issued on yesterday, our world is on a set course in accordance with Sir. Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. Unless we consciously change our course, our world is on a collision course with disaster. Each one of us can make intentional changes in our lives to make our world a better place, if we discipline ourselves for success.

The world is full of prognosticators of doom, but before you dismiss this as just another one on the list, please consider this warning that goes out to all nations. Whether you believe in God or believe there is no God, I and many others, believe that there is a global crisis threatening every nation on earth. It is not a crisis for food or natural resources, even though many nations and groups are experiencing dearth in these areas. I believe it is a moral crisis. There is enough food thrown away in the wealthier nations to feed the world everyday. As crisis hits the poorer nations, people are forced to flee to safer havens. Unfortunately, there has been a spirit of domination and control operative on the earth that has allowed the more powerful nations to steal the resources and dominate the people, and the nations, from whom they have stolen through force, and chicanery. The vast disparities of wealth and power, coupled with economic and moral crisis worldwide, has caused the increasing polarization of people on all continents. The accusatory finger has found someone to blame in every country, for the problems we face in our world, only to leave the most powerful wielders of power and influence invisible to the public. Anger with bitterness and hatred is publicly prevalent in the most powerful as well as the weaker nations of the world.

We have become a world obsessed with pleasure, power, and our own personal well-being. Nations that at one time adhered to at least a facade of faith and belief in God, have abandoned those beliefs as obsolete relics of the past. More and more religious leaders of every faith are found to be guilty of violating their own moral and religious codes without shame or repentance. At the same time, many people of faith have adopted an attitude of conformity and complicity with those who feel that they must control and dominate, as if to say, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Just as one would seek higher ground from a tsunami, or inland safety from a hurricane because of a forecast, please heed this storm warning for our planet. There are yet teachers and leaders of all faiths, as well as those in the fields of science, economics, and medicine who are sounding the alarm that some catastrophic event seems to be on the horizon. As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of the Kingdom of God, along with leaders and teachers of other faiths, we have a mandate to issue a warning to the world. This warning is a call for repentance to every nation, tribe, city, household, and every faith around the world, even to atheists and agnostics.

The coming crisis is a judgement for our own actions and our ongoing failure to do what we said and knew to be right even from our own national, and religious codes of ethics. As I increasingly recognize my own complicity in the moral laxity and bitterness that pervades our world, I understand how easy it is to blame someone else, even God or the devil, for the trouble that is facing our world.

Just as there are many accounts in history of people and nations who changed their course from unrighteousness to righteousness, maybe we can change our present course also and avoid mass destruction in our world. As a student of the Bible, my own life, and of history, I have discovered that repentance and change often only occur during a time of crisis and desperation. I believe we are living out the words of the prophets and of Jesus in the Bible regarding the judgement of this world. Who knows? If we, in every nation, were to repent like the biblical city of Nineveh down to every man, woman, boy, and girl, maybe God will spare us of some of the severe suffering that seems to be inevitable for the nations of our world.

Someone may ask, what does this have to do with Disciplined For Success, and how can a message of doom be juxtaposed with a message of success? Well, I believe that if we judge ourselves and control ourselves, we will not fall under the judgement or control of others. If our repentance is sincere, perhaps God will be merciful. We are losing control as individuals and as nations, and I believe it is going to take a great deal of self-discipline and a great deal of help from God for us to restore sanity to our world. As I often say: “If we master ourselves, we cannot be mastered by anyone else or anything else, and if God is our master, we cannot be defeated.”

I believe the coming months are going to reveal ‘the handwriting on the wall’ for our world. Repentance involves fundamental and permanent change of heart and direction. My goal is to fundamentally change some things in my life to become more aligned with the will of God that I know and believe. Repentance means changing for the better!

Repent! Repent! Repent!
Change! Change! Change! For the sake of all of us!